The Complete Celebrated Crimes by Alexander Dumas, Pere

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Maduron's arm every time the sentinel, in pacing his narrow round,approached the spot. Before break of day the work was well begun.Maduron then obliterated all traces of his file by daubing the barswith mud and wax, and withdrew. For three consecutive nights hereturned to his task, taking the same precautions, and before thefourth was at an end he found that by means of a slight effort thegrating could be removed. That was all that was needed, so he gavenotice to Messire Nicolas de Calviere that the moment had arrived.

Everything was favourable to the undertaking: as there was no moon,the next night was chosen to carry out the plan, and as soon as itwas dark Messire Nicolas de Calviere set out with his men, who,slipping down into the moat without noise, crossed, the water beingup to their belts, climbed up the other side, and crept along at thefoot of the wall till they reached the grating without beingperceived. There Maduron was waiting, and as soon as he caught sightof them he gave a slight blow to the loose bars; which fell, and thewhole party entered the drain, led by de Calviere, and soon foundthemselves at the farther end--that is to say, in the Place de laFontaine. They immediately formed into companies twenty strong, fourof which hastened to the principal gates, while the others patrolledthe streets shouting, "The city taken! Down with the Papists! A newworld! "Hearing this, the Protestants in the city recognised theirco-religionists, and the Catholics their opponents: but whereas theformer had been warned and were on the alert, the latter were takenby surprise; consequently they offered no resistance, which, however,did not prevent bloodshed. M. de St. Andre, the governor of thetown, who during his short period of office had drawn the bitterhatred of the Protestants on him, was shot dead in his bed, and hisbody being flung out of the window, was torn in pieces by thepopulace. The work of murder went on all night, and on the morrowthe victors in their turn began an organised persecution, which fellmore heavily on the Catholics than that to which they had subjectedthe Protestants; for, as we have explained above, the former couldonly find shelter in the plain, while the latter used the Cevennes asa stronghold.

It was about this time that the peace, which was called, as we havesaid, "the insecurely seated," was concluded. Two years later thisname was justified by the Massacre of St. Bartholomew.

When this event took place, the South, strange as it may seem, lookedon: in Nimes both Catholics and Protestants, stained with the other'sblood, faced each other, hand on hilt, but without drawing weapon.It was as if they were curious to see how the Parisians would getthrough. The massacre had one result, however, the union of theprincipal cities of the South and West: Montpellier, Uzes, Montauban,and La Rochelle, with Nimes at their head, formed a civil andmilitary league to last, as is declared in the Act of Federation,until God should raise up a sovereign to be the defender of theProtestant faith. In the year 1775 the Protestants of the Southbegan to turn their eyes towards Henri IV as the coming defender.

At that date Nimes, setting an example to the other cities of theLeague, deepened her moats, blew up her suburbs, and added to theheight of her ramparts. Night and day the work of perfecting themeans of defence went on; the guard at every gate was doubled, andknowing how often a city had been taken by surprise, not a holethrough which a Papist could creep was left in the fortifications.In dread of what the future might bring, Nimes even committedsacrilege against the past, and partly demolished the Temple of Dianaand mutilated the amphitheatre--of which one gigantic stone wassufficient to form a section of the wall. During one truce the cropswere sown, during another they were garnered in, and so things wenton while the reign of the Mignons lasted. At length the princeraised up by God, whom the Huguenots had waited for so long,appeared; Henri IV ascended the, throne.

But once seated, Henri found himself in the same difficulty as hadconfronted Octavius fifteen centuries earlier, and which confrontedLouis Philippe three centuries later--that is to say, having beenraised to sovereign power by a party which was not in the majority,he soon found himself obliged to separate from this party and toabjure his religious beliefs, as others have abjured or will yetabjure their political beliefs; consequently, just as Octavius hadhis Antony, and Louis Philippe was to have his Lafayette, Henri IVwas to have his Biron. When monarchs are in this position they canno longer have a will of their own or personal likes and dislikes;they submit to the force of circumstances, and feel compelled to relyon the masses; no sooner are they freed from the ban under which theylaboured than they are obliged to bring others under it.

However, before having recourse to extreme measures, Henri IV withsoldierly frankness gathered round him all those who had been hiscomrades of old in war and in religion; he spread out before them amap of France, and showed them that hardly a tenth of the immensenumber of its inhabitants were Protestants, and that even that tenthwas shut up in the mountains; some in Dauphine, which had been wonfor them by their three principal leaders, Baron des Adrets, CaptainMontbrun, and Lesdiguieres; others in the Cevennes, which had becomeProtestant through their great preachers, Maurice Secenat andGuillaume Moget; and the rest in the mountains of Navarre, whence hehimself had come. He recalled to them further that whenever theyventured out of their mountains they had been beaten in every battle,at Jarnac, at Moncontour, and at Dreux. He concluded by explaininghow impossible it was for him, such being the case, to entrust theguidance of the State to their party; but he offered them insteadthree things, viz., his purse to supply their present needs, theEdict of Nantes to assure their future safety, and fortresses todefend themselves should this edict one day be revoked, for withprofound insight the grandfather divined the grandson: Henri IVfeared Louis XIV.

The Protestants took what they were offered, but of course like allwho accept benefits they went away filled with discontent becausethey had not been given more.

Although the Protestants ever afterwards looked on Henri IV as arenegade, his reign nevertheless was their golden age, and while itlasted Nines was quiet; for, strange to say, the Protestants took norevenge for St. Bartholomew, contenting themselves with debarring theCatholics from the open exercise of their religion, but leaving themfree to use all its rites and ceremonies in private. They evenpermitted the procession of the Host through the streets in case ofillness, provided it took place at night. Of course death would notalways wait for darkness, and the Host was sometimes carried to thedying during the day, not without danger to the priest, who, however,never let himself be deterred thereby from the performance of hisduty; indeed, it is of the essence of religious devotion to beinflexible; and few soldiers, however brave, have equalled themartyrs in courage.

During this time, taking advantage of the truce to hostilities andthe impartial protection meted out to all without distinction by theConstable Damville, the Carmelites and Capuchins, the Jesuits andmonks of all orders and colours, began by degrees to return to Nines;without any display, it is true, rather in a surreptitious manner,preferring darkness to daylight; but however this may be, in thecourse of three or four years they had all regained foothold in thetown; only now they were in the position in which the Protestants hadbeen formerly, they were without churches, as their enemies were inpossession of all the places of worship. It also happened that aJesuit high in authority, named Pere Coston, preached with suchsuccess that the Protestants, not wishing to be beaten, but desirousof giving word for word, summoned to their aid the Rev. JeremieFerrier, of Alais, who at the moment was regarded as the mosteloquent preacher they had. Needless to say, Alais was situated inthe mountains, that inexhaustible source of Huguenot eloquence. Atonce the controversial spirit was aroused; it did not as yet amountto war, but still less could it be called peace: people were nolonger assassinated, but they were anathematised; the body was safe,but the soul was consigned to damnation: the days as they passed wereused by both sides to keep their hand in, in readiness for the momentwhen the massacres should again begin.

CHAPTER II

The death of Henri IV led to new conflicts, in which although atfirst success was on the side of the Protestants it by degrees wentover to the Catholics; for with the accession of Louis XIII Richelieuhad taken possession of the throne: beside the king sat the cardinal;under the purple mantle gleamed the red robe. It was at this crisisthat Henri de Rohan rose to eminence in the South. He was one of themost illustrious representatives of that great race which, allied asit was to the royal houses of Scotland, France, Savoy, and Lorraine;had taken as their device, "Be king I cannot, prince I will not,Rohan I am."

Henri de Rohan was at this time about forty years of age, in theprime of life. In his youth, in order to perfect his education, hehad visited England, Scotland, and Italy. In England Elizabeth hadcalled him her knight; in Scotland James VI had asked him to standgodfather to his son, afterwards Charles I; in Italy he had been sodeep in the confidence of the leaders of men, and so thoroughlyinitiated into the politics of the principal cities, that it wascommonly said that, after Machiavel, he was the greatest authority inthese matters. He had returned to France in the lifetime ofHenry IV, and had married the daughter of Sully, and after Henri'sdeath had commanded the Swiss and the Grison regiments--at the siegeof Juliers. This was the man whom the king was so imprudent as tooffend by refusing him the reversion of the office of governor ofPoitou, which was then held by Sully, his father-in-law. In order torevenge himself for the neglect he met with at court, as he states inhis Memoires with military ingenuousness, he espoused the cause ofConde with all his heart, being also drawn in this direction by hisliking for Conde's brother and his consequent desire to help those ofConde's religion.

>From this day on street disturbances and angry disputes assumedanother aspect: they took in a larger area and were not so readilyappeased. It was no longer an isolated band of insurgents whichroused a city, but rather a conflagration which spread over the wholeSouth, and a general uprising which was almost a civil war.

This state of things lasted for seven or eight years, and during thistime Rohan, abandoned by Chatillon and La Force, who received as thereward of their defection the field marshal's baton, pressed byConde, his old friend, and by Montmorency, his consistent rival,performed prodigies of courage and miracles of strategy. At last,without soldiers, without ammunition, without money, he stillappeared to Richelieu to be so redoubtable that all the conditions ofsurrender he demanded were granted. The maintenance of the Edict ofNantes was guaranteed, all the places of worship were to be restoredto the Reformers, and a general amnesty granted to himself and hispartisans. Furthermore, he obtained what was an unheard-of thinguntil then, an indemnity of 300,000 livres for his expenses duringthe rebellion; of which sum he allotted 240,000 livres to hisco-religionists--that is to say, more than three-quarters of theentire amount--and kept, for the purpose of restoring his variouschateaux and setting his domestic establishment, which had beendestroyed during the war, again on foot, only 60,000 livres. Thistreaty was signed on July 27th, 1629.

The Duc de Richelieu, to whom no sacrifice was too great in order toattain his ends, had at last reached the goal, but the peace cost himnearly 40,000,000 livres; on the other hand, Saintonge, Poitou, andLanguedoc had submitted, and the chiefs of the houses of LaTremouille, Conde, Bouillon, Rohan, and Soubise had came to termswith him; organised armed opposition had disappeared, and the loftymanner of viewing matters natural to the cardinal duke prevented himfrom noticing private enmity. He therefore left Nimes free to manageher local affairs as she pleased, and very soon the old order, orrather disorder, reigned once more within her walls. At lastRichelieu died, and Louis XIII soon followed him, and the longminority of his successor, with its embarrassments, left to Catholicsand Protestants in the South more complete liberty than ever to carryon the great duel which down to our own days has never ceased.

But from this period, each flux and reflux bears more and more thepeculiar character of the party which for the moment is triumphant;when the Protestants get the upper hand, their vengeance is marked bybrutality and rage; when the Catholics are victorious, theretaliation is full of hypocrisy and greed. The Protestants pulldown churches and monasteries, expel the monks, burn the crucifixes,take the body of some criminal from the gallows, nail it on a cross,pierce its side, put a crown of thorns round its temples and set itup in the market-place--an effigy of Jesus on Calvary. The Catholicslevy contributions, take back what they had been deprived of, exactindemnities, and although ruined by each reverse, are richer thanever after each victory. The Protestants act in the light of day,melting down the church bells to make cannon to the sound of thedrum, violate agreements, warm themselves with wood taken from thehouses of the cathedral clergy, affix their theses to the cathedraldoors, beat the priests who carry the Holy Sacrament to the dying,and, to crown all other insults, turn churches into slaughter-housesand sewers.

The Catholics, on the contrary, march at night, and, slipping in atthe gates which have been left ajar for them, make their bishoppresident of the Council, put Jesuits at the head of the college, buyconverts with money from the treasury, and as they always haveinfluence at court, begin by excluding the Calvinists from favour,hoping soon to deprive them of justice.

At last, on the 31st of December, 1657, a final struggle took place,in which the Protestants were overcome, and were only saved fromdestruction because from the other side of the Channel, Cromwellexerted himself in their favour, writing with his own hand at the endof a despatch relative to the affairs of Austria, "I Learn that therehave been popular disturbances in a town of Languedoc called Nimes,and I beg that order may be restored with as much mildness aspossible, and without shedding of blood." As, fortunately for theProtestants, Mazarin had need of Cromwell at that moment, torture wasforbidden, and nothing allowed but annoyances of all kinds. Thesehenceforward were not only innumerable, but went on without a pause:the Catholics, faithful to their system of constant encroachment,kept up an incessant persecution, in which they were soon encouragedby the numerous ordinances issued by Louis XIV. The grandson ofHenri IV could not so far forget all ordinary respect as to destroyat once the Edict of Nantes, but he tore off clause after clause.

In 1630--that is, a year after the peace with Rohan had been signedin the preceding reign--Chalons-sur-Saone had resolved that noProtestant should be allowed to take any part in the manufactures ofthe town.

In 1643, six months after the accession of Louis XIV, the laundressesof Paris made a rule that the wives and daughters of Protestants wereunworthy to be admitted to the freedom of their respectable guild.

In 1654, just one year after he had attained his majority, Louis XIVconsented to the imposition of a tax on the town of Nimes of 4000francs towards the support of the Catholic and the Protestanthospitals; and instead of allowing each party to contribute to thesupport of its own hospital, the money was raised in one sum, sothat, of the money paid by the Protestants, who were twice asnumerous as the Catholics, two-sixths went to their enemies. OnAugust 9th of the same year a decree of the Council ordered that allthe artisan consuls should be Catholics; on the 16th Septemberanother decree forbade Protestants to send deputations to the king;lastly, on the 20th of December, a further decree declared that allhospitals should be administered by Catholic consuls alone.

In 1662 Protestants were commanded to bury their dead either at dawnor after dusk, and a special clause of the decree fixed the number ofpersons who might attend a funeral at ten only.

In 1663 the Council of State issued decrees prohibiting the practiceof their religion by the Reformers in one hundred and forty-twocommunes in the dioceses of Nimes, Uzes, and Mendes; and ordering thedemolition of their meetinghouses.

In 1664 this regulation was extended to the meeting-houses of Alenconand Montauban, as Well as their small place of worship in Nimes. Onthe 17th July of the same year the Parliament of Rouen forbade themaster-mercers to engage any more Protestant workmen or apprenticeswhen the number already employed had reached the proportion of oneProtestant, to fifteen Catholics; on the 24th of the same month theCouncil of State declared all certificates of mastership held by aProtestant invalid from whatever source derived; and in Octoberreduced to two the number of Protestants who might be employed at themint.

In 1665 the regulation imposed on the mercers was extended to thegoldsmiths.

In 1666 a royal declaration, revising the decrees of Parliament, waspublished, and Article 31 provided that the offices of clerk to theconsulates, or secretary to a guild of watchmakers, or porter in amunicipal building, could only be held by Catholics; while in Article33 it was ordained that when a procession carrying the Host passed aplace of worship belonging to the so-called Reformers, theworshippers should stop their psalm-singing till the procession hadgone by; and lastly, in Article 34 it was enacted that the houses andother buildings belonging to those who were of the Reformed religionmight, at the pleasure of the town authorities, be draped with clothor otherwise decorated on any religious Catholic festival.

In 1669 the Chambers appointed by the Edict of Nantes in theParliaments of Rouen and Paris were suppressed, as well as thearticled clerkships connected therewith, and the clerkships in theRecord Office; and in August of the same year, when the emigration ofProtestants was just beginning, an edict was issued, of which thefollowing is a clause:

"Whereas many of our subjects have gone to foreign countries, wherethey continue to follow their various trades and occupations, evenworking as shipwrights, or taking service as sailors, till at lengththey feel at home and determine never to return to France, marryingabroad and acquiring property of every description: We hereby forbidany member of the so-called Reformed Church to leave this kingdomwithout our permission, and we command those who have already leftFrance to return forthwith within her boundaries."

In 1670 the king excluded physicians of the Reformed faith from theoffice of dean of the college of Rouen, and allowed only twoProtestant doctors within its precincts. In 1671 a decree waspublished commanding the arms of France to be removed from all theplaces of worship belonging to the pretended Reformers. In 1680 aproclamation from the king closed the profession of midwife to womenof the Reformed faith. In 1681 those who renounced the Protestantreligion were exempted for two years from all contributions towardsthe support of soldiers sent to their town, and were for the sameperiod relieved from the duty of giving them board and lodging. Inthe same year the college of Sedan was closed--the only collegeremaining in the entire kingdom at which Calvinist children couldreceive instruction. In 1682 the king commanded Protestant notaries;procurators, ushers, and serjeants to lay down their offices,declaring them unfit for such professions; and in September of thesame year three months only were allowed them for the sale of thereversion of the said offices. In 1684 the Council of State extendedthe preceding regulations to those Protestants holding the title ofhonorary secretary to the king, and in August of the same yearProtestants were declared incapable of serving on a jury of experts.

In 1685 the provost of merchants in Paris ordered all Protestantprivileged merchants in that city to sell their privileges within amonth. And in October of the same year the long series ofpersecutions, of which we have omitted many, reached its culminatingpoint--the: Revocation of the Edict of Nantes. Henri IV, who foresawthis result, had hoped that it would have occurred in another manner,so that his co-religionists would have been able to retain theirfortresses; but what was actually done was that the strong placeswere first taken away, and then came the Revocation; after which theCalvinists found themselves completely at the mercy of their mortalenemies.

>From 1669, when Louis first threatened to aim a fatal blow at thecivil rights of the Huguenots, by abolishing the equal partition ofthe Chambers between the two parties, several deputations had beensent to him praying him to stop the course of his persecutions; andin order not to give him any fresh excuse for attacking their party,these deputations addressed him in the most submissive manner, as thefollowing fragment from an address will prove:

"In the name of God, sire," said the Protestants to the king, "listento the last breath of our dying liberty, have pity on our sufferings,have pity on the great number of your poor subjects who daily watertheir bread with their tears: they are all filled with burning zealand inviolable loyalty to you; their love for your august person isonly equalled by their respect; history bears witness that theycontributed in no small degree to place your great and magnanimousancestor on his rightful throne, and since your miraculous birth theyhave never done anything worthy of blame; they might indeed use muchstronger terms, but your Majesty has spared their modesty byaddressing to them on many occasions words of praise which they wouldnever have ventured to apply to themselves; these your subjects placetheir sole trust in your sceptre for refuge and protection on earth,and their interest as well as their duty and conscience impels themto remain attached to the service of your Majesty with unalterabledevotion."

But, as we have seen, nothing could restrain the triumvirate whichheld the power just then, and thanks to the suggestions of PereLachaise and Madame de Maintenon, Louis XIV determined to gain heavenby means of wheel and stake.

As we see, for the Protestants, thanks to these numerous decrees,persecution began at the cradle and followed them to the grave.

As a boy, a Huguenot could--enter no public school; as a youth, nocareer was open to him; he could become neither mercer nor concierge,neither apothecary nor physician, neither lawyer nor consul. As aman, he had no sacred house, of prayer; no registrar would inscribehis marriage or the birth of his children; hourly his liberty and hisconscience were ignored. If he ventured to worship God by thesinging of psalms, he had to be silent as the Host was carried pastoutside. When a Catholic festival occurred, he was forced not onlyto swallow his rage but to let his house be hung with decorations insign of joy; if he had inherited a fortune from his fathers, havingneither social standing nor civil rights, it slipped gradually out ofhis hands, and went to support the schools and hospitals of his foes.Having reached the end of his life, his deathbed was made miserable;for dying in the faith of his fathers, he could not be laid to restbeside them, and like a pariah he would be carried to his grave atnight, no more than ten of those near and dear to him being allowedto follow his coffin.

Lastly, if at any age whatever he should attempt to quit the cruelsoil on which he had no right to be born, to live, or to die, hewould be declared a rebel, his goads would be confiscated, and thelightest penalty that he had to expect, if he ever fell into thehands of his enemies, was to row for the rest of his life in thegalleys of the king, chained between a murderer and a forger.

Such a state of things was intolerable: the cries of one man are lostin space, but the groans of a whole population are like a storm; andthis time, as always, the tempest gathered in the mountains, and therumblings of the thunder began to be heard.

First there were texts written by invisible hands on city walls, onthe signposts and cross-roads, on the crosses in the cemeteries:these warnings, like the 'Mene, Mene, Tekel, Upharsin' of Belshazzar,even pursued the persecutors into the midst of their feasts andorgies.

Now it was the threat, "Jesus came not to send peace, but a sword."Then this consolation, "For where two or three are gathered togetherin My name, there am I in the midst of them." Or perhaps it was thisappeal for united action which was soon to become a summons torevolt, "That which we have seen and heard declare we unto you, thatye also may have fellowship with us."

And before these promises, taken from the New Testament, thepersecuted paused, and then went home inspired by faith in theprophets, who spake, as St. Paul says in his First Epistle to theThessalonians, "not the word of men but the word of God."

Very soon these words became incarnate, and what the prophet Joelforetold came to pass: "Your sons and your daughters shall prophesy,your old men shall dream dreams, your young men shall see visions,...and I will show wonders in the heavens and in the earth, blood andfire,... and it shall come to pass that whosoever shall call on thename of the Lord shall be delivered."

In 1696 reports began to circulate that men had had visions; beingable to see what was going on in the most distant parts, and that theheavens themselves opened to their eyes. While in this ecstaticstate they were insensible to pain when pricked with either pin orblade; and when, on recovering consciousness, they were questionedthey could remember nothing.

The first of these was a woman from Vivarais, whose origin wasunknown. She went about from town to town, shedding tears of blood.M. de Baville, intendant of Languedoc, had her arrested and broughtto Montpellier. There she was condemned to death and burnt at thestake, her tears of blood being dried by fire.

After her came a second fanatic, for so these popular prophets werecalled. He was born at Mazillon, his name was Laquoite, and he wastwenty years of age. The gift of prophecy had come to him in astrange manner. This is the story told about him:--"One day,returning from Languedoc, where he had been engaged in thecultivation of silkworms, on reaching the bottom of the hill of St.Jean he found a man lying on the ground trembling in every limb.Moved by pity, he stopped and asked what ailed him. The man replied,'Throw yourself on your knees, my son, and trouble not yourself aboutme, but learn how to attain salvation and save your brethren. Thiscan only be done by the communion of the Holy Ghost, who is in me,and whom by the grace of God I can bestow on you. Approach andreceive this gift in a kiss.' At these words the unknown kissed theyoung man on the mouth, pressed his hand and disappeared, leaving theother trembling in his turn; for the spirit of God was in him, andbeing inspired he spread the word abroad."

A third fanatic, a prophetess, raved about the parishes of St.Andeol de Clerguemont and St. Frazal de Vantalon, but she addressedherself principally to recent converts, to whom she preachedconcerning the Eucharist that in swallowing the consecrated waferthey had swallowed a poison as venomous as the head of the basilisk,that they had bent the knee to Baal, and that no penitence on theirpart could be great enough to save them. These doctrines inspiredsuch profound terror that the Rev. Father Louvreloeil himself tellsus that Satan by his efforts succeeded in nearly emptying thechurches, and that at the following Easter celebrations there wereonly half as many communicants as the preceding year.

Such a state of licence, which threatened to spread farther andfarther, awoke the religious solicitude of Messire Francois Langladede Duchayla, Prior of Laval, Inspector of Missions of Gevaudan, andArch-priest of the Cevennes. He therefore resolved to leave hisresidence at Mende and to visit the parishes in which heresy hadtaken the strongest hold, in order to oppose it by every mean's whichGod and the king had put in his power.

The Abbe Duchayla was a younger son of the noble house of Langlade,and by the circumstances of his birth, in spite of his soldierlyinstincts, had been obliged to leave epaulet and sword to his elderbrother, and himself assume cassock and stole. On leaving theseminary, he espoused the cause of the Church militant with all theardour of his temperament. Perils to encounter; foes to fight, areligion to force on others, were necessities to this fierycharacter, and as everything at the moment was quiet in France, hehad embarked for India with the fervent resolution of a martyr.

On reaching his destination, the young missionary had found himselfsurrounded by circumstances which were wonderfully in harmony withhis celestial longings: some of his predecessors had been carried sofar by religious zeal that the King of Siam had put several to deathby torture and had forbidden any more missionaries to enter hisdominions; but this, as we can easily imagine, only excited stillmore the abbe's missionary fervour; evading the watchfulness of themilitary, and regardless of the terrible penalties imposed by theking, he crossed the frontier, and began to preach the Catholicreligion to the heathen, many of whom were converted.

One day he was surprised by a party of soldiers in a little villagein which he had been living for three months, and in which nearly allthe inhabitants had abjured their false faith, and was brought beforethe governor of Bankan, where instead of denying his faith, he noblydefended Christianity and magnified the name of God. He was handedover to the executioners to be subjected to torture, and suffered attheir hands with resignation everything that a human body can endurewhile yet retaining life, till at length his patience exhausted theirrage; and seeing him become unconscious, they thought he was dead,and with mutilated hands, his breast furrowed with wounds, his limbshalf warn through by heavy fetters, he was suspended by the wrists toa branch of a tree and abandoned. A pariah passing by cut him downand succoured him, and reports of his martyrdom having spread, theFrench ambassador demanded justice with no uncertain voice, so thatthe King of Siam, rejoicing that the executioners had stopped shortin time, hastened to send back to M. de Chaumont, the representativeof Louis XIV, a mutilated though still living man, instead of thecorpse which had been demanded.

At the time when Louis XIV was meditating the Revocation of the Edictof Nantes he felt that the services of such a man would be invaluableto him, so about 1632, Abbe Duchayla was recalled from India, and ayear later was sent to Mende, with the titles of Arch-priest of theCevennes and Inspector of Missions.

Soon the abbe, who had been so much persecuted, became a persecutor,showing himself as insensible to the sufferings of others as he hadbeen inflexible under his own. His apprenticeship to torture stoodhim in such good stead that he became an inventor, and not only didhe enrich the torture chamber by importing from India severalscientifically constructed machines, hitherto unknown in Europe, buthe also designed many others. People told with terror of reeds cutin the form of whistles which the abbe pitilessly forced under thenails of malignants; of iron pincers for tearing out their beards,eyelashes, and eyebrows; of wicks steeped in oil and wound round thefingers of a victim's hands, and then set on fire so as to form apair of five-flamed candelabra; of a case turning on a pivot in whicha man who refused to be converted was sometimes shut up, the casebeing then made to revolve rapidly till the victim lostconsciousness; and lastly of fetters used when taking prisoners fromone town to another, and brought to such perfection, that when theywere on the prisoner could neither stand nor sit.

Even the most fervent panegyrists of Abbe Duchayla spoke of him withbated breath, and, when he himself looked into his own heart andrecalled how often he had applied to the body the power to bind andloose which God had only given him over the soul, he was seized withstrange tremors, and falling on his knees with folded hands and bowedhead he remained for hours wrapt in thought, so motionless that wereit not for the drops of sweat which stood on his brow he might havebeen taken for a marble statue of prayer over a tomb.

Moreover, this priest by virtue of the powers with which he wasinvested, and feeling that he had the authority of M. de Baville,intendant of Languedoc, and M. de Broglie, commander of the troops,behind him, had done other terrible things.

He had separated children from father and mother, and had shut themup in religious houses, where they had been subjected to such severechastisement, by way of making them do penance for the heresy oftheir parents, that many of them died under it.

He had forced his way into the chamber of the dying, not to bringconsolation but menaces; and bending over the bed, as if to keep backthe Angel of Death, he had repeated the words of the terrible decreewhich provided that in case of the death of a Huguenot withoutconversion, his memory should be persecuted, and his body, deniedChristian burial, should be drawn on hurdles out of the city, andcast on a dungheap.

Lastly, when with pious love children tried to shield their parentsin the death-agony from his threats, or dead from his justice, bycarrying them, dead or dying, to some refuge in which they might hopeto draw their last breath in peace or to obtain Christian burial, hedeclared that anyone who should open his door hospitably to suchdisobedience was a traitor to religion, although among the heathensuch pity would have been deemed worthy of an altar.

Such was the man raised up to punish, who went on his way, precededby terror, accompanied by torture, and followed by death, through acountry already exhausted by long and bloody oppression, and where atevery step he trod on half repressed religious hate, which like avolcano was ever ready to burst out afresh, but always prepared formartyrdom. Nothing held him back, and years ago he had had his gravehollowed out in the church of St. Germain, choosing that church forhis last long sleep because it had been built by Pope Urban IV whenhe was bishop of Mende.

Abbe Duchayla extended his visitation over six months, during whichevery day was marked by tortures and executions: several prophetswere burnt at the stake; Francoise de Brez, she who had preached thatthe Host contained a more venomous poison than a basilisk's head, washanged; and Laquoite, who had been confined in the citadel ofMontpellier, was on the point of being broken on the wheel, when onthe eve of his execution his cell was found empty. No one could everdiscover how he escaped, and consequently his reputation rose higherthan ever, it being currently believed that, led by the Holy Spiritas St. Peter by the angel, he had passed through the guards invisibleto all, leaving his fetters behind.

This incomprehensible escape redoubled the severity of theArch-priest, till at last the prophets, feeling that their onlychance of safety lay in getting rid of him, began to preach againsthim as Antichrist, and advocate his death. The abbe was warned ofthis, but nothing could abate his zeal. In France as in India,martyrdom was his longed-for goal, and with head erect andunfaltering step he "pressed toward the mark."

At last, on the evening of the 24th of July, two hundred conspiratorsmet in a wood on the top of a hill which overlooked the bridge ofMontvert, near which was the Arch-priest's residence. Their leaderwas a man named Laporte, a native of Alais, who had become amaster-blacksmith in the pass of Deze. He was accompanied by aninspired man, a former wool-carder, born at Magistavols, EspritSeguier by name. This man was, after Laquoite, the most highlyregarded of the twenty or thirty prophets who were at that momentgoing up and down the Cevennes in every direction. The whole partywas armed with scythes, halberts, and swords; a few had even pistolsand guns.

On the stroke of ten, the hour fixed for their departure, they allknelt down and with uncovered heads began praying as fervently as ifthey were about to perform some act most pleasing to God, and theirprayers ended, they marched down the hill to the town, singingpsalms, and shouting between the verses to the townspeople to keepwithin their homes, and not to look out of door or window on pain ofdeath.

The abbe was in his oratory when he heard the mingled singing andshouting, and at the same moment a servant entered in great alarm,despite the strict regulation of the Arch-priest that he was never tobe interrupted at his prayers. This man announced that a body offanatics was coming down the hill, but the abbe felt convinced thatit was only an unorganised crowd which was going to try and carry offsix prisoners, at that moment in the 'ceps.' [ A terrible kind ofstocks--a beam split in two, no notches being made for the legs: thevictim's legs were placed between the two pieces of wood, which werethen, by means of a vice at each end, brought gradually together.Translators Note.]

These prisoners were three young men and three girls in men'sclothes, who had been seized just as they were about to emigrate. Asthe abbe was always protected by a guard of soldiers, he sent for theofficer in command and ordered him to march against, the fanatics anddisperse them. But the officer was spared the trouble of obeying,for the fanatics were already at hand. On reaching the gate of thecourtyard he heard them outside, and perceived that they were makingready to burst it in. Judging of their numbers by the sound of theirvoices, he considered that far from attacking them, he would haveenough to do in preparing for defence, consequently he bolted andbarred the gate on the inside, and hastily erected a barricade underan arch leading to the apartments of the abbe. Just as thesepreparations were complete, Esprit Seguier caught sight of a heavybeam of wood lying in a ditch; this was raised by a dozen men andused as a battering-ram to force in the gate, which soon showed abreach. Thus encouraged, the workers, cheered by the chants of theircomrades, soon got the gate off the hinges, and thus the outsidecourt was taken. The crowd then loudly demanded the release of theprisoners, using dire threats.

The commanding officer sent to ask the abbe what he was to do; theabbe replied that he was to fire on the conspirators. This imprudentorder was carried out; one of the fanatics was killed on the spot,and two wounded men mingled their groans with the songs and threatsof their comrades.

The barricade was next attacked, some using axes, others dartingtheir swords and halberts through the crevices and killing thosebehind; as for those who had firearms, they climbed on the shouldersof the others, and having fired at those below, saved themselves bytumbling down again. At the head of the besiegers were Laporte andEsprit Seguier, one of whom had a father to avenge and the other ason, both of whom had been done to death by the abbe. They were notthe only ones of the party who were fired by the desire of vengeance;twelve or fifteen others were in the same position.

The abbe in his room listened to the noise of the struggle, andfinding matters growing serious, he gathered his household round him,and making them kneel down, he told them to make their confession,that he might, by giving them absolution, prepare them for appearingbefore God. The sacred words had just been pronounced when therioters drew near, having carried the barricade, and driven thesoldiers to take refuge in a hall on the ground floor just under theArch-priest's room.

But suddenly, the assault was stayed, some of the men going tosurround the house, others setting out on a search for the prisoners.These were easily found, for judging by what they could hear thattheir brethren had come to their rescue, they shouted as loudly asthey could.

The unfortunate creatures had already passed a whole week with theirlegs caught and pressed by the cleft beams which formed theseinexpressibly painful stocks. When the unfortunate victims werereleased, the fanatics screamed with rage at the sight of theirswollen bodies and half-broken bones. None of the unhappy peoplewere able to stand. The attack on the soldiers was renewed, andthese being driven out of the lower hall, filled the staircaseleading to the abbe's apartments, and offered such determine.resistance that their assailants were twice forced to fall back.Laporte, seeing two of his men killed and five or six wounded, calledout loudly, "Children of God, lay down your arms: this way of goingto work is too slow; let us burn the abbey and all in it. To work!to work! "The advice was good, and they all hastened to follow it:benches, chairs, and furniture of all sorts were heaped up in thehall, a palliasse thrown on the top, and the pile fired. In a momentthe whole building was ablaze, and the Arch-priest, yielding to theentreaties of his servants, fastened his sheets to the window-bars,and by their help dropped into the garden. The drop was so greatthat he broke one of his thigh bones, but dragging himself along onhis hands and one knee, he, with one of his servants, reached arecess in the wall, while another servant was endeavouring to escapethrough the flames, thus falling into the hands of the fanatics, whocarried him before their captain. Then cries of "The prophet! theprophet!" were heard on all sides. Esprit Seguier, feeling thatsomething fresh had taken place, came forward, still holding in hishand the blazing torch with which he had set fire to the pile.

Esprit Seguier fell on his knees and covered his face with hismantle, like Samuel, and sought the Lord in prayer, asking to knowHis will.

In a short time he rose and said, "This man is not to die; forinasmuch as he has showed mercy to our brethren we must show mercy tohim."

Whether this fact had been miraculously revealed to Seguier, orwhether he had gained his information from other sources, the newlyreleased prisoners confirmed its truth, calling out that the man hadindeed treated them with humanity. Just then a roar as of a wildbeast was heard: one of the fanatics, whose brother had been put todeath by the abbe, had just caught sight of him, the wholeneighbourhood being lit up by the fire; he was kneeling in an angleof the wall, to which he had dragged himself.

"Down with the son of Belial!" shouted the crowd, rushing towards thepriest, who remained kneeling and motionless like a marble statue.His valet took advantage of the confusion to escape, and got offeasily; for the sight of him on whom the general hate wasconcentrated made the Huguenots forget everything else:

Esprit Seguier was the first to reach the priest, and spreading hishands over him, he commanded the others to hold back. "God desirethnot the death of a sinner,'" said he, "'but rather that he turn fromhis wickedness and live.'"

"No, no!" shouted a score of voices, refusing obedience for the firsttime, perhaps, to an order from the prophet; "let him die withoutmercy, as he struck without pity. Death to the son of Belial,death!"

"Silence!" exclaimed the prophet in a terrible voice, "and listen tothe word of God from my mouth. If this man will join us and takeupon him the duties of a pastor, let us grant him his life, that hemay henceforward devote it to the spread of the true faith."

"Rather a thousand deaths than apostasy!" answered the priest.

"Die, then!" cried Laporte, stabbing him; "take that for having burntmy father in Nimes."

And he passed on the dagger to Esprit Seguier.

Duchayla made neither sound nor gesture: it would have seemed as ifthe dagger had been turned by the priest's gown as by a coat of mailwere it not that a thin stream of blood appeared. Raising his eyesto heaven, he repeated the words of the penitential psalm: "Out ofthe depths have I cried unto Thee, O Lord! Lord, hear my voice!"

Then Esprit Seguier raised his arm and struck in his turn, saying,"Take that for my son, whom you broke on the wheel at Montpellier."

And he passed on the dagger.

But this blow also was not mortal, only another stream of bloodappeared, and the abbe said in a failing voice, "Deliver me, O mySaviour, out of my well-merited sufferings, and I will acknowledgetheir justice; far I have been a man of blood."

The next who seized the dagger came near and gave his blow, saying,"Take that for my brother, whom you let die in the 'ceps.'"

This time the dagger pierced the heart, and the abbe had only time toejaculate, "Have mercy on me, O God, according to Thy great mercy!"before he fell back dead.

But his death did not satisfy the vengeance of those who had not beenable to strike him living; one by one they drew near and stabbed,each invoking the shade of some dear murdered one and pronouncing thesame words of malediction.

In all, the body of the abbe received fifty-two dagger thrusts, ofwhich twenty-four would have been mortal.

Thus perished, at the age of fifty-five, Messire Francois de LangladeDuchayla, prior of Laval, inspector of missions in Gevaudan, andArch-priest of the Cevennes and Mende.

Their vengeance thus accomplished, the murderers felt that there wasno more safety for them in either city or plain, and fled to themountains; but in passing near the residence of M. de Laveze, aCatholic nobleman of the parish of Molezon, one of the fugitivesrecollected that he had heard that a great number of firearms waskept in the house. This seemed a lucky chance, for firearms werewhat the Huguenots needed most of all. They therefore sent twoenvoys to M. de Laveze to ask him to give them at, least a share ofhis weapons; but he, as a good Catholic, replied that it was quitetrue that he had indeed a store of arms, but that they were destinedto the triumph and not to the desecration of religion, and that hewould only give them up with his life. With these words, hedismissed the envoys, barring his doors behind them.

But while this parley was going on the conspirators had approachedthe chateau, and thus received the valiant answer to their demandssooner than M. de Laveze had counted on. Resolving not to leave himtime to take defensive measures, they dashed at the house, and bystanding on each other's shoulders reached the room in which M. deLaveze and his entire family had taken refuge. In an instant thedoor was forced, and the fanatics, still reeking with the life-bloodof Abbe Duchayla, began again their work of death. No one wasspared; neither the master of the house, nor his brother, nor hisuncle, nor his sister, who knelt to the assassins in vain; even hisold mother, who was eighty years of age, having from her bed firstwitnessed the murder of all her family, was at last stabbed to theheart, though the butchers might have reflected that it was hardlyworth while thus to anticipate the arrival of Death, who according tothe laws of nature must have been already at hand.

The massacre finished, the fanatics spread over the castle, supplyingthemselves with arms and under-linen, being badly in need of thelatter; for when they left their homes they had expected soon toreturn, and had taken nothing with them. They also carried off thecopper kitchen utensils, intending to turn them into bullets.Finally, they seized on a sum of 5000 francs, the marriage-portion ofM. de Laveze's sister, who was just about to be married, and thuslaid the foundation of a war fund

The news of these two bloody events soon reached not only Nimes butall the countryside, and roused the authorities to action. M. leComte de Broglie crossed the Upper Cevennes, and marched down to thebridge of Montvert, followed by several companies of fusiliers. Fromanother direction M. le Comte de Peyre brought thirty-two cavalry andthree hundred and fifty infantry, having enlisted them at Marvejols,La Canourgue, Chiac, and Serverette. M. de St. Paul, Abbe Duchayla'sbrother, and the Marquis Duchayla, his nephew, brought eightyhorsemen from the family estates. The Count of Morangiez rode infrom St. Auban and Malzieu with two companies of cavalry, and thetown of Mende by order of its bishop despatched its nobles at thehead of three companies of fifty men each.

But the mountains had swallowed up the fanatics, and nothing was everknown of their fate, except that from time to time a peasant wouldrelate that in crossing the Cevennes he had heard at dawn or dusk, onmountain peak or from valley depths, the sound going up to heaven ofsongs of praise. It was the fanatic assassins worshipping God.

Or occasionally at night, on the tops of the lofty mountains, firesshone forth which appeared to signal one to another, but on lookingthe next night in the same direction all was dark.

So M. de Broglie, concluding that nothing could be done againstenemies who were invisible, disbanded the troops which had come tohis aid, and went back to Montpellier, leaving a company of fusiliersat Collet, another at Ayres, one at the bridge of Montvert, one atBarre, and one at Pompidon, and appointing Captain Poul as theirchief,

This choice of such a man as chief showed that M. de Broglie was agood judge of human nature, and was also perfectly acquainted withthe situation, for Captain Poul was the very man to take a leadingpart in the coming struggle. "He was," says Pere Louvreloeil, priestof the Christian doctrine and cure of Saint-Germain de Calberte, "anofficer of merit and reputation, born in Ville-Dubert, nearCarcassonne, who had when young served in Hungary and Germany, anddistinguished himself in Piedmont in several excursions against theBarbets, [ A name applied first to the Alpine smugglers who lived inthe valleys, later to the insurgent peasants in the Cevennes.--Translator's Note.] notably in one of the later ones, when, enteringthe tent of their chief, Barbanaga, he cut off his head. His talland agile figure, his warlike air, his love of hard work, his hoarsevoice, his fiery and austere character, his carelessness in regard todress, his mature age, his tried courage, his taciturn habit, thelength and weight of his sword, all combined to render himformidable. Therefore no one could have been chosen more suitablefor putting down the rebels, for forcing their entrenchments, and forputting them to flight."

Hardly had he taken up a position in the market town of Labarre,which was to be his headquarters, than he was informed that agathering of fanatics had been seen on the little plain of Fondmorte,which formed a pass between two valleys. He ordered out his Spanishsteed, which he was accustomed to ride in the Turkish manner--thatis, with very short stirrups, so that he could throw himself forwardto the horse's ears, or backward to the tail, according as he wishedto give or avoid a mortal blow. Taking with him eighteen men of hisown company and twenty-five from the town, he at once set off for theplace indicated, not considering any larger number necessary to putto rout a band of peasants, however numerous.

The information turned out to be correct: a hundred Reformers led byEsprit Seguier had encamped in the plain of Fondmorte, and abouteleven o'clock in the morning one of their sentinels in the defilegave the alarm by firing off his gun and running back to the camp,shouting, "To arms!" But Captain Poul, with his usual impetuosity,did not give the insurgents time to form, but threw himself upon themto the beat of the drum, not in the least deterred by their firstvolley. As he had expected, the band consisted of undisciplinedpeasants, who once scattered were unable to rally. They weretherefore completely routed. Poul killed several with his own hand,among whom were two whose heads he cut off as cleverly as the mostexperienced executioner could have done, thanks to the marvelloustemper of his Damascus blade. At this sight all who had till thenstood their ground took to flight, Poul at their heels, slashing withhis sword unceasingly, till they disappeared among the mountains. Hethen returned to the field of battle, picked up the two heads, andfastening them to his saddlebow, rejoined his soldiers with hisbloody trophies,--that is to say, he joined the largest group ofsoldiers he could find; for the fight had turned into a number ofsingle combats, every soldier fighting for himself. Here he foundthree prisoners who were about to be shot; but Poul ordered that theyshould not be touched: not that he thought for an instant of sparingtheir lives, but that he wished to reserve them for a publicexecution. These three men were Nouvel, a parishioner of Vialon,Moise Bonnet of Pierre-Male, and Esprit Seguier the prophet.

Captain Poul returned to Barre carrying with him his two heads andhis three prisoners, and immediately reported to M. Just de Baville,intendant of Languedoc, the important capture he had made. Theprisoners were quickly tried. Pierre Nouvel was condemned to beburnt alive at the bridge of Montvert, Molise Bonnet to be broken onthe wheel at Deveze, and Esprit Seguier to be hanged atAndre-de-Lancise. Thus those who were amateurs in executions had asufficient choice.

However, Moise Bonnet saved himself by becoming Catholic, but PierreNouvel and Esprit Seguier died as martyrs, making profession of thenew faith and praising God.

Two days after the sentence on Esprit Seguier had been carried out,the body disappeared from the gallows. A nephew of Laporte namedRoland had audaciously carried it off, leaving behind a writingnailed to the gibbet. This was a challenge from Laporte to Poul, andwas dated from the "Camp of the Eternal God, in the desert ofCevennes," Laporte signing himself "Colonel of the children of Godwho seek liberty of conscience." Poul was about to accept thechallenge when he learned that the insurrection was spreading onevery side. A young man of Vieljeu, twenty-six years of age, namedSolomon Couderc, had succeeded Esprit Seguier in the office ofprophet, and two young lieutenants had joined Laporte. One of thesewas his nephew Roland, a man of about thirty, pock-marked, fair,thin, cold, and reserved; he was not tall, but very strong, and ofinflexible courage. The other, Henri Castanet of Massevaques, was akeeper from the mountain of Laygoal, whose skill as a marksman was sowell known that it was said he never missed a shot. Each of theselieutenants had fifty men under him.

Prophets and prophetesses too increased apace, so that hardly a daypassed without reports being heard of fresh ones who were rousingwhole villages by their ravings.

In the meantime a great meeting of the Protestants of Languedoc hadbeen held in the fields of Vauvert, at which it had been resolved tojoin forces with the rebels of the Cevennes, and to send a messengerthither to make this resolution known.

Laporte had just returned from La Vaunage, where he had been makingrecruits, when this good news arrived; he at once sent his nephewRoland to the new allies with power to pledge his word in return fortheirs, and to describe to them, in order to attract them, thecountry which he had chosen as the theatre of the coming war, andwhich, thanks to its hamlets, its woods, its defiles, its valleys,its precipices, and its caves, was capable of affording cover to asmany bands of insurgents as might be employed, would be a goodrallying-ground after repulse, and contained suitable positions forambuscades. Roland was so successful in his mission that these new"soldiers of the Lord," as they called themselves, on learning thathe had once been a dragoon, offered him the post of leader, which heaccepted, and returned to his uncle at the head of an army.

Being thus reinforced, the Reformers divided themselves into threebands, in order to spread abroad their beliefs through the entiredistrict. One went towards Soustele and the neighbourhood of Alais,another towards St. Privat and the bridge of Montvert, while thethird followed the mountain slope down to St. Roman le Pompidou, andBarre.

The first was commanded by Castanet, the second by Roland, and thethird by Laporte.

Each party ravaged the country as it passed, returning deathblow fordeathblow and conflagration for conflagration, so that hearing oneafter another of these outrages Captain Poul demanded reinforcementsfrom M. de Broglie and M. de Baville, which were promptly despatched.

As soon as Captain Poul found himself at the head of a sufficientnumber of troops, he determined to attack the rebels. He hadreceived intelligence that the band led by Laporte was just about topass through the valley of Croix, below Barre, near Temelague. Inconsequence of this information, he lay in ambush at a favourablespot on the route. As soon as the Reformers who were withoutsuspicion, were well within the narrow pass in which Poul awaitedthem, he issued forth at the head of his soldiers, and charged therebels with such courage and impetuosity that they, taken bysurprise, made no attempt at resistance, but, thoroughly demoralised,spread over the mountain-side, putting a greater and greater distanceat, every instant between themselves and the enemy, despite theefforts of Laporte to make them stand their ground. At last, seeinghimself deserted, Laporte began to think of his own safety. But itwas already too late, for he was surrounded by dragoons, and the onlyway of retreat open to him lay over a large rock. This hesuccessfully scaled, but before trying to get down the other side heraised his hands in supplication to Heaven; at that instant a volleywas fired, two bullets struck him, and he fell head foremost down theprecipice.

When the dragoons reached the foot of the rock, they found him dead.As they knew he was the chief of the rebels, his body was searched:sixty Louis was found in his pockets, and a sacred chalice which hewas in the habit of using as an ordinary drinking-cup. Poul cut offhis head and the heads of twelve other Reformers found dead on thefield of battle, and enclosing them in a wicker basket, sent them toM. Just de Baville.

The Reformers soon recovered from this defeat and death, joined alltheir forces into one body, and placed Roland at their head in theplace of Laporte. Roland chose a young man called Couderc de Mazel-Rozade, who had assumed the name of Lafleur, as his lieutenant, andthe rebel forces were not only quickly reorganised, but made completeby the addition of a hundred men raised by the new lieutenant, andsoon gave a sign that they were again on the war-path by burning downthe churches of Bousquet, Cassagnas, and Prunet.

Then first it was that the consuls of Mende began to realise that itwas no longer an insurrection they had on hand but a war, and Mendebeing the capital of Gevaudan and liable to be attacked at anymoment, they set themselves to bring into repair their counterscarps,ravelins, bastions, gates, portcullises, moats, walls, turrets,ramparts, parapets, watchtowers, and the gear of their cannon, andhaving laid in a stock of firearms, powder and ball, they formedeight companies each fifty strong, composed of townsmen, and afurther band of one hundred and fifty peasants drawn from theneighbouring country. Lastly, the States of the province sent anenvoy to the king, praying him graciously to take measures to checkthe plague of heresy which was spreading from day to day. The kingat once sent M. Julien in answer to the petition. Thus it was nolonger simple governors of towns nor even chiefs of provinces whowere engaged in the struggle; royalty itself had come to the rescue.

M. de Julien, born a Protestant, was a, member of the nobility ofOrange, and in his youth had served against France and borne arms inEngland and Ireland when William of Orange succeeded James II as Kingof England, Julien was one of his pages, and received as a reward forhis fidelity in the famous campaign of 1688 the command of a regimentwhich was sent to the aid of the Duke of Savoy, who had begged bothEngland and Holland to help him. He bore himself so gallantly that itwas in great part due to him that the French were forced to raise thesiege of Cony.

Whether it was that he expected too much from this success, or thatthe Duke of Savoy did not recognise his services at their worth, hewithdrew to Geneva, where Louis XIV hearing of his discontent, causedovertures to be made to him with a view to drawing him into theFrench service. He was offered the same rank in the French army ashe had held in the English, with a pension of 3000 livres.

M. de Julien accepted, and feeling that his religious belief would bein the way of his advancement, when he changed his master he changedhis Church. He was given the command of the valley of Barcelonnette,whence he made many excursions against the Barbets; then he wastransferred to the command of the Avennes, of the principality ofOrange, in order to guard the passes, so that the French Protestantscould not pass over the frontier for the purpose of worshipping withtheir Dutch Protestant brethren; and after having tried this for ayear, he went to Versailles to report himself to the king. While hewas there, it chanced that the envoy from Gevaudan arrived, and theking being satisfied with de Julien's conduct since he had enteredhis service, made him major-general, chevalier of the military orderof St. Louis; and commander-in-chief in the Vivarais and theCevennes.

M. de Julien from the first felt that the situation was very grave,and saw that his predecessors had felt such great contempt for theheretics that they had not realised the danger of the revolt. Heimmediately proceeded to inspect in person the different points whereM. de Broglie had placed detachments of the Tournon and Marsilyregiments. It is true that he arrived by the light of thirty burningvillage churches.

M. de Broglie, M. de Baville, M. de Julien, and Captain Poul mettogether to consult as to the best means of putting an end to thesedisorders. It was agreed that the royal troops should be dividedinto two bodies, one under the command of M. de Julien to advance onAlais, where it was reported large meetings of the rebels were takingplace, and the other under M. de Brogue, to march about in theneighbourhood of Nimes.

Consequently, the two chiefs separated. M. le Comte de Broglie atthe head of sixty-two dragoons and some companies of foot, and havingunder him Captain Poul and M. de Dourville, set out from Cavayrac onthe 12th of January at 2 a. m., and having searched without findinganything the vineyards of Nimes and La Garrigue de Milhau, took theroad to the bridge of Lunel. There he was informed that those he wasin search of had been seen at the chateau of Caudiac the day before;he therefore at once set out for the forest which lies around it, notdoubting to find the fanatics entrenched there; but, contrary to hisexpectations, it was vacant. He then pushed on to Vauvert, fromVauvert to Beauvoisin, from Beauvoisin to Generac, where he learnedthat a troop of rebels had passed the night there, and in the morninghad left for Aubore. Resolved to give them no rest, M, de Broglieset out at once for this village.

When half-way there, a member of his staff thought he coulddistinguish a crowd of men near a house about half a league distant;M. de Broglie instantly ordered Sieur de Gibertin, Captain Paul'slieutenant, who was riding close by, at the head of his company, totake eight dragoons and make a reconnaissance, in order to ascertainwho these men were, while the rest of the troops would make a halt.

This little band, led by its officer, crossed a clearing in the wood,and advanced towards the farmhouse, which was called the Mas deGafarel, and which now seemed deserted. But when they were withinhalf a gun-shot of the wall the charge was sounded behind it, and aband of rebels rushed towards them, while from a neighbouring house asecond troop emerged, and looking round, he perceived a third lyingon their faces in a small wood. These latter suddenly stood up andapproached him, singing psalms. As it was impossible for M. deGibertin to hold his ground against so large a force, he ordered twoshots to be fired as a warning to de Brogue to advance to meet him,and fell back on his comrades. Indeed, the rebels had only pursuedhim till they had reached a favourable position, on which they tooktheir stand.

M. de Brogue having surveyed the whole position with the aid of atelescope, held a council of war, and it was decided that an attackshould be made forthwith. They therefore advanced on the rebels inline: Captain Poul on the right, M. de Dourville on the left, andCount Broglie in the centre.

As they got near they could see that the rebels had chosen theirground with an amount of strategical sagacity they had never tillthen displayed. This skill in making their dispositions wasevidently due to their having found a new leader whom no one knew,not even Captain Poul, although they could see him at the head of hismen, carbine in hand.

However, these scientific preparations did not stop M. de Brogue: hegave the order to charge, and adding example to precept, urged hishorse to a gallop. The rebels in the first rank knelt on one knee,so that the rank behind could take aim, and the distance between thetwo bodies of troops disappeared rapidly, thanks to the impetuosityof the dragoons; but suddenly, when within thirty paces of the enemy,the royals found themselves on the edge of a deep ravine whichseparated them from the enemy like a moat. Some were able to checktheir horses in time, but others, despite desperate efforts, pressedupon by those behind, were pushed into the ravine, and rolledhelplessly to the bottom. At the same moment the order to fire wasgiven in a sonorous voice, there was a rattle of musketry, andseveral dragoons near M. de Broglie fell.

"Forward!" cried Captain Poul, "forward!" and putting his horse at apart of the ravine where the sides were less steep, he was soonstruggling up the opposite side, followed by a few dragoons.

"Death to the son of Belial!" cried the same voice which had giventhe order to fire. At that moment a single shot rang out, CaptainPoul threw up his hands, letting his sabre go, and fell from hishorse, which instead of running away, touched his master with itssmoking nostrils, then lifting its head, neighed long and low. Thedragoons retreated.

"So perish all the persecutors of Israel!" cried the leader,brandishing his carbine. He then dashed down into the ravine, pickedup Captain Poul's sabre and jumped upon his horse. The animal,faithful to its old master, showed some signs of resistance, but soonfelt by the pressure of its rider's knees that it had to do with onewhom it could not readily unseat. Nevertheless, it reared andbounded, but the horseman kept his seat, and as if recognising thatit had met its match, the noble animal tossed its head, neighed oncemore, and gave in. While this was going on, a party of Camisards[Name given to the insurgent Calvinists after the Revocation of theEdict of Nantes.--Translator's Note.] and one of the dragoons had gotdown into the ravine, which had in consequence been turned into abattlefield; while those who remained above on either side tookadvantage of their position to fire down at their enemies. M. deDourville, in command of the dragoons, fought among the others like asimple soldier, and received a serious wound in the head; his menbeginning to lose ground, M. de Brogue tried to rally them, butwithout avail, and while he was thus occupied his own troop ran away;so seeing there was no prospect of winning the battle, he and a fewvaliant men who had remained near him dashed forward to extricate M.Dourville, who, taking advantage of the opening thus made, retreated,his wound bleeding profusely. On the other hand, the Camisardsperceiving at some distance bodies of infantry coming up to reinforcethe royals, instead of pursuing their foes, contented themselves withkeeping up a thick and well-directed musketry-fire from the positionin which they had won such a quick and easy victory.

As soon as the royal forces were out of reach of their weapons, therebel chief knelt down and chanted the song the Israelites sang when,having crossed the Red Sea in safety, they saw the army of Pharaohswallowed up in the waters, so that although no longer within reachof bullets the defeated troops were still pursued by songs ofvictory. Their thanksgivings ended, the Calvinists withdrew into theforest, led by their new chief, who had at his first assay shown thegreat extent of his knowledge, coolness, and courage.

This new chief, whose superiors were soon to become his lieutenants,was the famous Jean Cavalier.

Jean Cavalier was then a young man of twenty-three, of less thanmedium height, but of great strength. His face was oval, withregular features, his eyes sparkling and beautiful; he had longchestnut hair falling on his shoulders, and an expression ofremarkable sweetness. He was born in 1680 at Ribaute, a village inthe diocese of Alais, where his father had rented a small farm, whichhe gave up when his son was about fifteen, coming to live at the farmof St. Andeol, near Mende.

Young Cavalier, who was only a peasant and the son of a peasant,began life as a shepherd at the Sieur de Lacombe's, a citizen ofVezenobre, but as the lonely life dissatisfied a young man who waseager for pleasure, Jean gave it up, and apprenticed himself to abaker of Anduze.

There he developed a great love for everything connected with themilitary; he spent all his free time watching the soldiers at theirdrill, and soon became intimate with some of them, amongst otherswith a fencing-master who gave him lessons, and a dragoon who taughthim to ride.

On a certain Sunday, as he was taking a walk with his sweetheart onhis arm, the young girl was insulted by a dragoon of the Marquis deFlorae's regiment. Jean boxed the dragoon's ears, who drew hissword. Cavalier seized a sword from one of the bystanders, but thecombatants were prevented from fighting by Jean's friends. Hearingof the quarrel, an officer hurried up: it was the Marquis de Floraehimself, captain of the regiment which bore his name; but when hearrived on the scene he found, not the arrogant peasant who had daredto attack a soldier of the king, but only the young girl, who hadfainted, the townspeople having persuaded her lover to decamp.

The young girl was so beautiful that she was commonly called la belleIsabeau, and the Marquis de Florac, instead of pursuing JeanCavalier, occupied himself in reviving Isabeau.

As it was, however, a serious affair, and as the entire regiment hadsworn Cavalier's death, his friends advised him to leave the countryfor a time. La belle Isabeau, trembling for the safety of her lover,joined her entreaties to those of his friends, and Jean Cavalieryielded. The young girl promised him inviolable fidelity, and he,relying on this promise, went to Geneva.

There he made the acquaintance of a Protestant gentleman called DuSerre, who having glass-works at the Mas Arritas, quite near the farmof St. Andeol, had undertaken several times, at the request of Jean'sfather, Jerome, to convey money to Jean; for Du Serre went very oftento Geneva, professedly on business affairs, but really in theinterests of the Reformed faith. Between the outlaw and the apostleunion was natural. Du Serre found in Cavalier a young man of robustnature, active imagination, and irreproachable courage; he confidedto him his hopes of converting all Languedoc and Vivarais. Cavalierfelt himself drawn back there by many ties, especially by patriotismand love. He crossed the frontier once more, disguised as a servant,in the suite of a Protestant gentleman; he arrived one night atAnduze, and immediately directed his steps to the house of Isabeau.

He was just about to knock, although it was one o'clock in themorning, when the door was opened from within, and a handsome youngman came out, who took tender leave of a woman on the threshold. Thehandsome young man was the Marquis de Florac; the woman was Isabeau.The promised wife of the peasant had become the mistress of thenoble.

Our hero was not the man to suffer such an outrage quietly. Hewalked straight up to the marquis and stood right in his way. Themarquis tried to push him aside with his elbow, but Jean Cavalier,letting fall the cloak in which he was wrapped, drew his sword. Themarquis was brave, and did not stop to inquire if he who attacked himwas his equal or not. Sword answered sword, the blades crossed, andat the end of a few instants the marquis fell, Jean's sword piercinghis chest.

Cavalier felt sure that he was dead, for he lay at his feetmotionless. He knew he had no time to lose, for he had no mercy tohope for. He replaced his bloody sword in the scabbard, and made forthe open country; from the open country he hurried into themountains, and at break of day he was in safety.

The fugitive remained the whole day in an isolated farmhouse whoseinmates offered him hospitality. As he very soon felt that he was inthe house of a co-religionist, he confided to his host thecircumstances in which he found himself, and asked where he couldmeet with an organised band in which he could enrol himself in orderto fight for the propagation of the Reformed religion. The farmermentioned Generac as being a place in which he would probably find ahundred or so of the brethren gathered together. Cavalier set outthe same evening for this village, and arrived in the middle of theCamisards at the very moment when they had just caught sight of M. deBroglie and his troops in the distance. The Calvinists happening tohave no leader, Cavalier with governing faculty which some menpossess by nature, placed himself at their head and took thosemeasures for the reception of the royal forces of which we have seenthe result, so that after the victory to which his head and arm hadcontributed so much he was confirmed in the title which he hadarrogated to himself, by acclamation.

Such was the famous Jean Cavalier when the Royalists first learned ofhis existence, through the repulse of their bravest troops and thedeath of their most intrepid captain.

The news of this victory soon spread through the Cevennes, and freshconflagrations lit up the mountains in sign of joy. The beacons wereformed of the chateau de la Bastide, the residence of the Marquis deChambonnas, the church of Samson, and the village of Grouppieres,where of eighty houses only seven were left standing.

Thereupon M. de Julien wrote to the king, explaining the serious turnthings had taken, and telling him that it was no longer a fewfanatics wandering through the mountains and flying at the sight of adragoon whom they had to put down, but organised companies well ledand officered, which if united would form an army twelve to fifteenhundred strong. The king replied by sending M. le Comte de Montrevelto Nimes. He was the son of the Marechal de Montrevel, chevalier ofthe Order of the Holy Spirit, major-general, lieutenant of the kingin Bresse and Charolais, and captain of a hundred men-at-arms.

In their struggle against shepherds, keepers, and peasants, M. deBrogue, M. de Julien, and M. de Baville were thus joined togetherwith the head of the house of Beaune, which had already at this epochproduced two cardinals, three archbishops, two bishops, a viceroy ofNaples, several marshals of France, and many governors of Savoy,Dauphine, and Bresse.

He was followed by twenty pieces of ordnance, five thousand bullets,four thousand muskets, and fifty thousand pounds of powder, all ofwhich was carried down the river Rhone, while six hundred of theskilful mountain marksmen called 'miquelets' from Roussillon camedown into Languedoc.

M. de Montrevel was the bearer of terrible orders. Louis XIV wasdetermined, no matter what it cost, to root out heresy, and set aboutthis work as if his eternal salvation depended on it. As soon as M.de Baville had read these orders, he published the followingproclamation:

"The king having been informed that certain people without religionbearing arms have been guilty of violence, burning down churches andkilling priests, His Majesty hereby commands all his subjects to huntthese people down, and that those who are taken with arms in theirhands or found amongst their bands, be punished with death withoutany trial whatever, that their houses be razed to the ground andtheir goods confiscated, and that all buildings in which assembliesof these people have been held, be demolished. The king furtherforbids fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters, and other relations ofthe fanatics, or of other rebels, to give them refuge, food, stores,ammunition, or other assistance of any kind, under any pretextwhatever, either directly or indirectly, on pain of being reputedaccessory to the rebellion, and he commands the Sieur de Baville andwhatever officers he may choose to prosecute such and pronouncesentence of death on them. Furthermore, His Majesty commands thatall the inhabitants of Languedoc who may be absent at the date of theissue of this proclamation, return home within a week, unless theirabsence be caused by legitimate business, in which case they shalldeclare the same to the commandant, the Sieur de Montrevel, or to theintendant, the Sieur de Baville, and also to the mayors and consulsof the places where they may be, receiving from the lattercertificates that there is a sufficient reason for their delay, whichcertificates they shall forward to the above-mentioned commandant orintendant. And His Majesty furthermore commands the said commandantand intendant to admit no foreigner or inhabitant of any otherprovince into Languedoc for commercial purposes or for any otherreason whatsoever, unless provided with certificates from thecommandants or intendants of the provinces whence they come, or fromthe judges of the royal courts in the places whence they come, orfrom the nearest place containing such courts. Foreigners must beprovided with passports from the ambassadors or ministers of the kingaccredited to the countries to which they belong, or from thecommandants or intendants of the provinces, or from the judges of theroyal courts of the places in which they may be at the date of thisproclamation. Furthermore, it is His Majesty's will that those whoare found in the, aforesaid province of Languedoc without suchcertificates be regarded as fanatics and rebels, and that they beprosecuted as such, and punished with death, and that they be broughtfor this purpose before the aforesaid Sieur de Baville or theofficers whom he may choose.

"(Signed)"(Countersigned)

"LOUIS PHILIPPEAU

"Given at Versailles the 25th day, of the month of February 1703."

M. de Montrevel obeyed this proclamation to the letter. Forinstance, one day--the 1st of April 1703--as he was seated at dinnerit was reported to him that about one hundred and fifty Reformerswere assembled in a mill at Carmes, outside Nimes, singing psalms.Although he was told at the same time that the gathering was composedentirely of old people and children, he was none the less furious,and rising from the table, gave orders that the call to horse shouldbe sounded. Putting himself at the head of his dragoons, he advancedon the mill, and before the Huguenots knew that they were about to beattacked they were surrounded on every side. It was no combat whichensued, for the Huguenots were incapable of resistance, it was simplya massacre; a certain number of the dragoons entered the mill swordin hand, stabbing all whom they could reach, whilst the rest of theforce stationed outside before the windows received those who jumpedout on the points of their swords. But soon this butchery tired thebutchers, and to get over the business more quickly, the marshal, whowas anxious to return to his dinner, gave orders that the mill shouldbe set on fire. This being done, the dragoons, the marshal still attheir head, no longer exerted themselves so violently, but weresatisfied with pushing back into the flames the few unfortunates who,scorched and burnt, rushed out, begging only for a less cruel death.

Only one victim escaped. A beautiful young girl of sixteen was savedby the marshal's valet: both were taken and condemned to death; theyoung girl was hanged, and the valet was on the point of beingexecuted when some Sisters of Mercy from the town threw themselves atthe marshal's feet end begged for his life: after long supplication,he granted their prayer, but he banished the valet not only from hisservice, but from Nimes.

The very same evening at supper word was brought to the marshal thatanother gathering had been discovered in a garden near the stillsmoking mill. The indefatigable marshal again rose from table, andtaking with him his faithful dragoons, surrounded the garden, andcaught and shot on the spot all those who were assembled in it. Thenext day it turned out that he had made a mistake: those whom he hadshot were Catholics who had gathered together to rejoice over theexecution of the Calvinists. It is true that they had assured themarshal that they were Catholics, but he had refused to listen tothem. Let us, however, hasten to assure the reader that this mistakecaused no further annoyance to the marshal, except that he received apaternal remonstrance from the Bishop of Nimes, begging him in futurenot to confound the sheep with the wolves.

In requital of these bloody deeds, Cavalier took the chateau ofSerras, occupied the town of Sauve, formed a company of horse, andadvancing to Nimes, took forcible possession of sufficient ammunitionfor his purposes. Lastly, he did something which in the eyes of thecourtiers seemed the most incredible thing of all, he actually wrotea long letter to Louis XIV himself. This letter was dated from the"Desert, Cevennes," and signed "Cavalier, commander of the troopssent by God"; its purpose was to prove by numerous passages from HolyWrit that Cavalier and his comrades had been led to revolt solelyfrom a sense of duty, feeling that liberty of conscience was theirright; and it dilated on the subject of the persecutions under whichProtestants had suffered, and asserted that it was the infamousmeasures put in force against them which had driven them to take uparms, which they were ready to lay down if His Majesty would grantthem that liberty in matters of religion which they sought and if hewould liberate all who were in prison for their faith. If this wereaccorded, he assured the king His Majesty would have no more faithfulsubjects than themselves, and would henceforth be ready to shed theirlast drop of blood in his service, and wound up by saying that iftheir just demands were refused they would obey God rather than theking, and would defend their religion to their last breath.

Roland, who, whether in mockery or pride, began now to call himself"Comte Roland," did not lag behind his young brother either aswarrior or correspondent. He had entered the town of Ganges, where awonderful reception awaited him; but not feeling sure that he wouldbe equally well received at St. Germain and St. Andre, he had writtenthe following letters:--

"Gentlemen and officers of the king's forces, and citizens of St.Germain, make ready to receive seven hundred troops who have vowed toset Babylon on fire; the seminary and the houses of MM. de Fabregue,de Sarrasin, de Moles, de La Rouviere, de Musse, and de Solier, willbe burnt to the ground. God, by His Holy Spirit, has inspired mybrother Cavalier and me with the purpose of entering your town in afew days; however strongly you fortify yourselves, the children ofGod will bear away the victory. If ye doubt this, come in yournumbers, ye soldiers of St. Etienne, Barre, and Florac, to the fieldof Domergue; we shall be there to meet you. Come, ye hypocrites, ifyour hearts fail not.

"COMTE ROLAND."

The second letter was no less violent. It was as follows:--

"We, Comte Roland, general of the Protestant troops of Franceassembled in the Cevennes in Languedoc, enjoin on the inhabitants ofthe town of St. Andre of Valborgne to give proper notice to allpriests and missionaries within it, that we forbid them to say massor to preach in the afore-mentioned town, and that if they will avoidbeing burnt alive with their adherents in their churches and houses,they are to withdraw to some other place within three days.

"COMTE ROLAND."

Unfortunately for the cause of the king, though the rebels met withsome resistance in the villages of the plain, such as St. Germain andSt. Andre, it was otherwise with those situated in the mountains; inthose, when beaten, the Protestants found cover, when victoriousrest; so that M. de Montrevel becoming aware that while thesevillages existed heresy would never be extirpated, issued thefollowing ordinance:--

"We, governor for His most Christian Majesty in the provinces ofLanguedoc and Vivarais, do hereby make known that it has pleased theking to command us to reduce all the places and parishes hereinafternamed to such a condition that they can afford no assistance to therebel troops; no inhabitants will therefore be allowed to remain inthem. His Majesty, however, desiring to provide for the subsistenceof the afore-mentioned inhabitants, orders them to conform to thefollowing regulations. He enjoins on the afore-mentioned inhabitantsof the hereinafter-mentioned parishes to repair instantly to theplaces hereinafter appointed, with their furniture, cattle, and ingeneral all their movable effects, declaring that in case ofdisobedience their effects will be confiscated and taken away by thetroops employed to demolish their houses. And it is hereby forbiddento any other commune to receive such rebels, under pain of havingtheir houses also razed to the ground and their goods confiscated,and furthermore being regarded and treated as rebels to the commandsof His Majesty."

To this proclamation were appended the following instructions:--

"I. The officers who may be appointed to perform the above taskshall first of all make themselves acquainted with the position ofthe parishes and villages which are to be destroyed and depopulated,in order to an effective disposition of the troops, who are to guardthe militia engaged in the work of destruction.

"II. The attention of the officers is called to the following:--When two or more villages or hamlets are so near together that theymay be protected at the same time by the same troops, then in orderto save time the work is to be carried on simultaneously in suchvillages or hamlets.

"III. When inhabitants are found still remaining in any of theproscribed places, they are to be brought together, and a list madeof them, as well as an inventory taken of their stock and corn.

"IV. Those inhabitants who are of the most consequence among themshall be selected to guide the others to the places assigned.

"V. With regard to the live stock, the persons who may be found incharge of it shall drive it to the appointed place, save and exceptmules and asses, which shall be employed in the transport of corn towhatever places it may be needed in. Nevertheless, asses may begiven to the very old, and to women with child who may be unable towalk.

"VI. A regular distribution of the militia is to be made, so thateach house to be destroyed may have a sufficient number, for thetask; the foundations of such houses may be undermined or any othermethod employed which may be most convenient; and if the house can bedestroyed by no other means, it is to be set on fire.

"VII. No damage is to be done to the houses of former Catholicsuntil further notice, and to ensure the carrying out of this order aguard is to be placed in them, and an inventory of their contentstaken and sent to Marechal de Montrevel.

"VIII. The order forbidding the inhabitants to return to theirhouses is to be read to the inhabitants of each village; but if anydo return they shall not be harmed, but simply driven away withthreats; for the king does not desire that blood be shed; and thesaid order shall be affixed to a wall or tree in each village.

"IX. Where no inhabitants are found, the said order shall simply beaffixed as above-mentioned in each place.

"(Signed) "MARECHAL DE MONTREVEL"

Under these instructions the list of the villages to be destroyed wasgiven. It was as follows:

In all, 466 market towns, hamlets, and villages, with 19,500inhabitants, were included.

All these preparations made Marechal de Montrevel set out for Aix,September 26th, 1703, in order that the work might be carried outunder his personal supervision. He was accompanied by MM. deVergetot and de Marsilly, colonels of infantry, two battalions of theRoyal-Comtois, two of the Soissonnais infantry, the Languedocregiment of dragoons, and two hundred dragoons from the Fimarconregiment. M. de Julien, on his side, set out for the Pont-de-Montvert at the same time with two battalions from Hainault,accompanied by the Marquis of Canillac, colonel of infantry, whobrought two battalions of his own regiment, which was stationed inRouergue, with him, and Comte de Payre, who brought fifty-fivecompanies of militia from Gevaudan, and followed by a number of mulesloaded with crowbars, axes, and other iron instruments necessary forpulling down houses.

The approach of all these troops following close on the terribleproclamations we have given above, produced exactly the contraryeffect to that intended. The inhabitants of the proscribed districtswere convinced that the order to gather together in certain placeswas given that they might be conveniently massacred together, so thatall those capable of bearing arms went deeper into the mountains, andjoined the forces of Cavalier and Roland, thus reinforcing them tothe number of fifteen hundred men. Also hardly had M. de Julien sethis hand to the work than he received information from M. deMontrevel, who had heard the news through a letter from Flechier,that while the royal troops were busy in the mountains the Camisardshad come down into the plain, swarmed over La Camargue, and had beenseen in the neighbourhood of Saint-Gilles. At the same time word wassent him that two ships had been seen in the offing, from Cette, andthat it was more than probable that they contained troops, thatEngland and Holland were sending to help the Camisards.

M. de Montrevel; leaving the further conduct of the expedition to MM.de Julien and de Canillac, hastened to Cette with eight hundred menand ten guns. The ships were still in sight, and were really, as hadbeen surmised, two vessels which had been detached from the combinedfleets of England and Holland by Admiral Schowel, and were thebearers of money, arms, and ammunition to the Huguenots. Theycontinued to cruise about and signal, but as the rebels were forcedby the presence of M. de Montrevel to keep away from the coast, andcould therefore make no answer, they put off at length into the open,and rejoined the fleet. As M. de Montrevel feared that their retreatmight be a feint, he ordered all the fishermen's huts fromAigues-Morte to Saint-Gilles to be destroyed, lest they should affordshelter to the Camisards. At the same time he carried off theinhabitants of the district of Guillan and shut them up in thechateau of Sommerez, after having demolished their villages. Lastly,he ordered all those who lived in homesteads, farms, or hamlets, toquit them and go to some large town, taking with them all theprovisions they were possessed of; and he forbade any workman whowent outside the town to work to take more than one day's provisionswith him.

These measures had the desired effect, but they were terrible intheir results; they deprived the Camisards of shelter indeed, butthey ruined the province. M. de Baville, despite his well-knownseverity tried remonstrances, but they were taken in bad part by M.de Montrevel, who told the intendant to mind his own business, whichwas confined to civil matters, and to leave military matters in his,M. de Montrevel's, hands; whereupon the commandant joined M. deJulien, who was carrying on the work of destruction withindefatigable vigour.

In spite of all the enthusiasm with which M. de Julien went to workto accomplish his mission, and being a new convert, it was, ofcourse, very great. Material hindrances hampered him at every step.Almost all the doomed houses were built on vaulted foundations, andwere therefore difficult to lay low; the distance of one house fromanother, too, their almost inaccessible position, either on the peakof a high mountain or in the bottom of a rocky valley, or buried inthe depths of the forest which hid then like a veil, made thedifficulty still greater; whole days were often lost by the workmenand militia in searching for the dwellings they came to destroy.

The immense size of the parishes also caused delay: that ofSaint-Germain de Calberte, for instance, was nine leagues incircumference, and contained a hundred and eleven hamlets, inhabitedby two hundred and seventy-five families, of which only nine wereCatholic; that of Saint-Etienne de Valfrancesque was of still greaterextent, and its population was a third larger, so that obstacles tothe work multiplied in a remarkable manner. For the first few daysthe soldiers and workmen found food in and around the villages, butthis was soon at an end, and as they could hardly expect the peasantsto keep up the supply, and the provisions they had brought with thembeing also exhausted, they were soon reduced to biscuit and water;and they were not even able to make it into a warm mess by heatingthe water, as they had no vessels; moreover, when their hard day'swork was at an end, they had but a handful of straw on which to lie.These privations, added to their hard and laborious life, brought onan endemic fever, which incapacitated for work many soldiers andlabourers, numbers of whom had to be dismissed. Very soon theunfortunate men, who were almost as much to be pitied as those whomthey were persecuting, waited no longer to be sent away, but desertedin numbers.

M. de Julien soon saw that all his efforts would end in failure if hecould not gain the king's consent to a slight change in the originalplan. He therefore wrote to Versailles, and represented to the kinghow long the work would take if the means employed were only irontools and the human hand, instead of fire, the only true instrumentemployed by Heaven in its vengeance. He quoted in support of hispetition the case of Sodom and Gomorrah--those cities accursed of theLord. Louis XIV, impressed by the truth of this comparison, sent himback a messenger post-haste authorising him to employ the suggestedmeans.

"At once," says Pere Louvreloeil, "the storm burst, and soon of allthe happy homesteads nothing was left: the hamlets, with their barnsand outhouses, the isolated farmhouses, the single huts and cottages,every species of building in short, disappeared before the swiftadvancing flames as wild flowers, weeds, and roots fall before theploughshare."

This destruction was accompanied by horrible cruelty. For instance,twenty-five inhabitants of a certain village took refuge in achateau; the number consisted of children and very old people, andthey were all that was left of the entire population. Palmerolle, incommand of the miquelets, hearing of this, hastened thither, seizedthe first eight he could lay hold of, and shot them on the spot, "toteach them," as he says in his report, "not to choose a shelter whichwas not on the list of those permitted to them."

The Catholics also of St. Florent, Senechas, Rousson, and otherparishes, becoming excited at seeing the flames which enveloped thehouses of their old enemies, joined together, and arming themselveswith everything that could be made to serve as an instrument ofdeath, set out to hunt the conscripts down; they carried off theflocks of Perolat, Fontareche, and Pajolas, burned down a dozenhouses at the Collet-de-Deze, and from there went to the village ofBrenoux, drunk with the lust of destruction. There they massacredfifty-two persons, among them mothers with unborn children; and withthese babes, which they tore from them, impaled on their pikes andhalberts, they continued their march towards the villages of St.Denis and Castagnols.

Very soon these volunteers organised themselves into companies, andbecame known under the name of Cadets de la Croix, from a small whitecross which they wore on their coats; so the poor Huguenots had a newspecies of enemy to contend with, much more bloodthirsty than thedragoons and the miquelets; for while these latter simply obeyedorders from Versailles, Nimes, or Montpellier, the former gratified apersonal hate--a hate which had come down to them from their fathers,and which they would pass on to their children.

On the other hand, the young Huguenot leader, who every day gainedmore influence over his soldiers, tried to make the dragoons andCadets de la Croix suffer in return everything they inflicted on theHuguenots, except the murders. In the night from the 2nd to the 3rdOctober, about ten o'clock, he came down into the plain and attackedSommieres from two different points, setting fire to the houses. Theinhabitants seizing their arms, made a sortie, but Cavalier chargedthem at the head of the Cavalry and forced them to retreat. Thereuponthe governor, whose garrison was too small to leave the shelter ofthe walls, turned his guns on them and fired, less in the hope ofinflicting injury on them than in that of being heard by theneighbouring garrisons.

The Camisards recognising this danger, retired, but not before theyhad burnt down the hotels of the Cheval-Blanc, the Croix-d'Or, theGrand-Louis, and the Luxembourg, as well as a great number of otherhouses, and the church and the presbytery of Saint-Amand.

Thence the Camisards proceeded to Cayla and Vauvert, into which theyentered, destroying the fortifications. There they providedthemselves abundantly with provisions for man and beast. In Vauvert,which was almost entirely inhabited by his co-religionists, Cavalierassembled the inhabitants in the market-place, and made them joinwith him in prayer to God, that He would prevent the king fromfollowing evil counsel; he also exhorted his brethren to be ready tosacrifice their goods and their lives for the re-establishment oftheir religion, affirming that the Holy Spirit had revealed to himthat the arm of the Lord, which had always come to their aid, wasstill stretched out over them.

Cavalier undertook these movements in the hope of interrupting thework of destruction going on in Upper Cevennes; and partly obtainedthe desired result; for M. de Julien received orders to come downinto the open country and disperse the Camisards.

The troops tried to fulfil this task, but, thanks to the knowledgethat the rebels had of the country, it was impossible to come up withthem, so that Fleshier, who was in the thick of the executions,conflagrations, and massacres, but who still found time to writeLatin verse and gallant letters, said, in speaking of them, "Theywere never caught, and did all the damage they wished to do withoutlet or hindrance. We laid their mountains waste, and they laid wasteour plain. There are no more churches left in our dioceses, and notbeing able either to plough or sow our lands, we have no revenues.We dread serious revolt, and desire to avoid a religious civil war;so all our efforts are relaxing, we let our arms fall without knowingwhy, and we are told, 'You must have patience; it is not possible tofight against phantoms.'" Nevertheless, from time to time, thesephantoms became visible. Towards the end of October, Cavalier camedown to Uzes, carried off two sentinels who were guarding the gates,and hearing the call to arms within, shouted that he would await thegovernor of the city, M. de Vergetot, near Lussan.

And indeed Cavalier, accompanied by his two lieutenants, Ravanel andCatinat, took his way towards this little town, between Uzes andBargeac, which stands upon an eminence surrounded upon all sides bycliffs, which serve it as ramparts and render it very difficult ofaccess. Having arrived within three gun-shots of Lussan, Cavaliersent Ravanel to demand provisions from the inhabitants; but they,proud of their natural ramparts, and believing their townimpregnable, not only refused to comply with the requisition, butfired several shots on the envoy, one of which wounded in the arm aCamisard of the name of La Grandeur, who had accompanied Ravanel.Ravanel withdrew, supporting his wounded comrade, followed by shotsand the hootings of the inhabitants. When they rejoined Cavalier andmade their report, the young commander issued orders to his soldiersto make ready to take the town the next morning; for, as night wasalready falling, he did not venture to start in the dark. In themeantime the besieged sent post-haste to M. de Vergetot to warn himof their situation; and resolving to defend themselves as long asthey could, while waiting for a response to their message they setabout barricading their gates, turned their scythes into weapons,fastened large hooks on long poles, and collected all the instrumentsthey could find that could be used in attack or defence. As to theCamisards, they encamped for the night near an old chateau calledFan, about a gun-shot from Lussan.

At break of day loud shouts from the town told the Camisards that theexpected relief was in sight, and looking out they saw in thedistance a troop of soldiers advancing towards them; it was M. deVergetat at the head of his regiment, accompanied by forty Irishofficers.

The Protestants prepared themselves, as usual, by reciting psalms andprayers, notice without taking of the shouts and threats of any ofthe townspeople, and having finished their invocations, they marchedout to meet the approaching column. The cavalry, commanded byCatinat, made a detour, taking a sheltered way to an unguarded bridgeover a small river not far off, so as to outflank the royal forces,which they were to attack in the rear as soon as Cavalier and Ravanelshould have engaged them in front.

M. de Vergetot, on his side, continued to advance, so that theCalvinists and the Catholics were soon face to face. The battlebegan on both sides by a volley; but Cavalier having seen his cavalryemerging from a neighbouring wood, and counting upon theirassistance, charged the enemy at the double quick. Catinat judgingby the noise of the firing that his presence was necessary, chargedalso at a gallop, falling on the flank of the Catholics.

In this charge, one of M. de Vergetot's captains was killed by abullet, and the other by a sabre-cut, and the grenadiers falling intodisorder, first lost ground and then fled, pursued by Catinat and hishorsemen, who, seizing them by the hair, despatched them with theirswords. Having tried in vain to rally his men, M, de Vergetot,surrounded by a few Irish, was forced in his turn to fly; he washotly pursued, and on the point of being taken, when by good luck hereached the height of Gamene, with its walls of rock. Jumping offhis horse, he entered the narrow pathway which led to the top, andentrenched himself with about a hundred men in this natural fort.Cavalier perceiving that further pursuit would be dangerous, resolvedto rest satisfied with his victory; as he knew by his own experiencethat neither men nor horses had eaten for eighteen hours, he gave thesignal far retreat, and retired on Seyne, where he hoped to findprovisions.

This defeat mortified the royal forces very deeply, and they resolvedto take their revenge. Having learnt by their spies that on acertain night in November Cavalier arid his band intended to sleep ona mountain called Nages, they surrounded the mountain during thenight, so that at dawn Cavalier found himself shut in on every side.As he wished to see with his own eyes if the investment was complete,he ordered his troops to fall into rank on the top of the mountain,giving the command to Ravanel and Catinat, and with a pair of pistolsin his belt and his carbine on his shoulder, he glided from bush tobush and rock to rock, determined, if any weak spot existed, todiscover it; but the information he had received was perfectlycorrect, every issue was guarded.

Cavalier now set off to rejoin his troops, passing through a ravine,but he had hardly taken thirty steps when he found himself confrontedby a cornet and two dragoons who were lying in ambush. There was notime to run away, and indeed such a thought never entered the youngcommander's head; he walked straight up to them. On their side, thedragoons advanced towards him, and the cornet covering him with hispistol, called out, "Halt! you are Cavalier; I know you. It is notpossible for you to escape; surrender at discretion." Cavalier'sanswer was to blow out the cornet's brains with a shot from hiscarbine, then throwing it behind him as of no further use, he drewhis two pistols from his belt, walked up to the two dragoons, shotthem both dead, and rejoined his comrades unwounded. These, who hadbelieved him lost, welcomed him with cheers.

But Cavalier had something else to do than to celebrate his return;mounting his horse, he put himself at the head of his men, and fellupon the royal troops with such impetuosity that they gave way at thefirst onset. Then a strange incident occurred. About thirty womenwho had come to the camp with provisions, carried away by theirenthusiasm at the sight of this success, threw themselves upon theenemy, fighting like men. One young girl of about seventeen, LucreseGuigon by name, distinguished herself amongst the others by her greatvalour. Not content with encouraging her brethren by the cry of "Thesword of the Lord and of Gideon!" she tore sabres from the hands ofthe dead dragoons to despatch the dying. Catinat, followed by ten ofhis men, pursued the flying troops as far as the plain of Calvisson.There they were able to rally, thanks to the advance of the garrisonto meet them.

Eighty dragoons lay dead on the field of battle, while Cavalier hadonly lost five men.

As we shall see, Cavalier was not only a brave soldier and a skilfulcaptain, but also a just judge. A few days after the deed of armswhich we have just related, he learned that a horrible murder hadbeen committed by four Camisards, who had then retired into theforest of Bouquet. He sent a detachment of twenty men with orders toarrest the murderers and bring them before him. The following arethe details of the crime:

The daughter of Baron Meyrargues, who was not long married to agentleman named M. de Miraman, had set out on the 29th November forAmbroix to join her husband, who was waiting for her there. She wasencouraged to do this by her coachman, who had often met withCamisards in the neighbourhood, and although a Catholic, had neverreceived any harm from them. She occupied her own carriage, and wasaccompanied by a maid, a nurse, a footman, and the coachman who hadpersuaded her to undertake the journey. Two-thirds of the wayalready lay safely behind them, when between Lussan and Vaudras shewas stopped by four, men, who made her get out of her carriage andaccompany them into the neighbouring forest. The account of whatthen happened is taken from the deposition of the maid. We copy itword for word:

"These wretches having forced us," says she, "to walk into the foresttill we were at some distance from the high road, my poor mistressgrew so tired that she begged the man who walked beside her to allowher to lean on his shoulder. He looking round and seeing that theyhad reached a lonely spot, replied, 'We need hardly go any farther,'and made us sit dawn on a plot of grass which was to be the scene ofour martyrdom. My poor mistress began to plead with the barbariansin the most touching manner, and so sweetly that she would havesoftened the heart of a demon. She offered them her purse, her goldwaistband, and a fine diamond which she drew from her finger; butnothing could move these tigers, and one of them said, 'I am going tokill all the Catholics at once, and shall be gin with you.' 'Whatwill you gain by my death?' asked my mistress. 'Spare my life.'--'No; shut up!' replied he. 'You shall die by my hand. Say yourprayers.' My good mistress threw herself at once on her knees andprayed aloud that God would show mercy to her and to her murderers,and while she was thus praying she received a pistol-shot in her leftbreast, and fell; a second assassin cut her across the face with hissword, and a third dropped a large stone on her head, while thefourth killed the nurse with a shot from his pistol. Whether it wasthat they had no more loaded firearms, or that they wished to savetheir ammunition, they were satisfied with only giving me severalbayonet wounds. I pretended to be dead: they thought it was reallythe case, and went away. Some time after, seeing that everything hadbecome quiet, and hearing no sound, I dragged myself, dying as I was,to where my dear mistress lay, and called her. As it happened, shewas not quite dead, and she said in a faint voice, 'Stay with me,Suzon, till I die.' She added, after a short pause, for she washardly able to speak, 'I die for my religion, and I hope that Godwill have pity on me. Tell my husband that I confide our little oneto his care.' Having said this, she turned her thoughts from theworld, praying to God in broken and tender words, and drew her last